US media also under fire……

The media here is also under fire, but with less fanfare than the BskyB scandal. Up into the 80′s, American’s took little notice of media bias. There were of course periodicals with an open bias, but radio and especially TV were considered neutral. TV seriously sapped the radio audience and its nightly news ratings were based largely on the appeal presenters had for the public. To be sure, Walter Cronkite was king of the presenters, but he had some serious competition that enabled all three of the major networks to stay in the money. Then came cable.

It all started with Ted Turner and his CNN concept. I recall when it first appeared, there were almost no adverts and the reporting of world events seemed instantaneous. Being overseas at the time, we only had access to CNN international. Turner turned out to be a megalomaniac as was evidenced by his behavior toward his crew as he successfully defended the America Cup against Australia way back when. He came across as Captain Bligh. He is also the largest private landowner in the USA. He is certainly no slouch, but neither was the captain of the Bounty.

CNN was initially perceived as politically neutral; probably because the American TV audience was not accustomed to the sort of reporting bias that prevails say in the UK and Europe. It came as quite a revelation to us that both Cronkite and CNN and the rest of the networks were liberal and oriented to the democrats. They still are and even more so today by contrast with the starkly Conservative Fox News Channel, a subsidiary of Murdoch’s News Corporation. Fox news, makes CNN and the original networks (ABC, NBC and CBS) look like they all subscribe to The Guardian.

The Fox News motto, ‘fair and balanced’ is a joke not unlike the New York Times banner ‘all the news that’s fit to print’. So, Fox is still posing as unbiased and would be better off to lose that motto and simply lay claim to the political right as does the Telegraph.

Indeed, most of the classic American press (the original networks and major newspapers including the NYT) claim to be politically neutral. So does our public broadcasting system which is clearly left oriented, but nowhere near to the degree of the BBC. As Fox is leading the way toward overt bias, it will not take long for others to follow. Eventually we shall have as colorful a range of media as does the UK and Europe. We are still growing up.